2 AM Aftermath
by Cornerofmadness
Summary: The events of the day finally break Malcolm down.


**Title**-2 A.M. Aftermath

**Timeline/Spoilers** \- Set immediately after _Q and A_ so pretty much spoilers all the way here

**Warning**\- angst

**Author's Note**\- written for cozy_coffee in comment_fic for the prompt Any, any hurt male, here's to being human/all the pain and suffering; There's beauty in the bleeding/at least you feel something and a late whumptober offering for the prompt embrace. It definitely contains spoilers for _Q and A_ (episode seven) and some speculation on my part about the mental state of Ainsley Whitly.

XXX

He woke up with a scream dying in his throat and feeling like he'd been punched in the eye. Well, shackles or not, he had enough slack in the tethers to manage that. Malcolm spit his bite guard into his shaking hand and set it aside. As he unshackled himself, his fingers fumbling with the latches, the feeling of idiocy settled around him. He should have _known_ better than to try and sleep after the day he'd had.

Sitting up, Malcolm flinched. His right shoulder ached from all the thrashing he's done against his restraints. Of course, he might actually have an AC separation from tossing himself out the window and dangling his entire body weight from his arm. He'd been achy ever since and didn't doubt he'd hurt himself more than he'd been willing to deal with.

Rolling out of bed, he couldn't stop the shaking or his mind racing. Malcolm's stomach roiled but he'd be damned if he threw up. He wouldn't give anyone that satisfaction, not that anyone would actually know. That was the problem with being back home; he had so few people here he could talk to and only one at this hour.

Tossing some water on his face - oh look, his eye was swelling - Malcolm called Lyft. He couldn't be alone right now, especially with Gil's comment about Malcolm reporting the lock-down as him thinking Malcolm had submitted to some intensive psychiatric care. Joke or not – more likely a little of each – Gil wasn't far from wrong.

The woman driving the Lyft car was awfully chatty for this hour of the night but didn't seem to mind that Malcolm wasn't actually answering her. Hell, he wasn't even sure if she were speaking to him or just plain talking to mid-air. He couldn't engage enough with it. Instead he was captured by the loud, hard sounds from the song she was listening to. It was fast, probably to help keep her awake so late.

_Here's to being human_

_All the pain and suffering_

_There's beauty in the bleeding_

_At least you feel something_

He couldn't remember the last time he related so much to some lyrics. If he felt nothing, he'd worry more than he did just then. His heart and head hurt. _My children went to see their serial killer father in serial killer prison and it didn't go well_? His mother's far from subtle sarcasm had been well earned but it had stung. On top of that he had other concerns, to have his father removed from circulation was something he'd have to work on even if it took a court order to get access to him. Of course that would be playing into Doctor Whitly's plans. He hated feeling like his father's puppet but if it was only his father's, it wouldn't have induced the next-level night terror he'd just suffered through and probably tore shoulder ligaments thanks to it.

_I am machine_

_I never sleep_

_Until I fix what's broken _

But would he ever manage that? Malcolm wished he knew.

X X X

The pounding on his door drove Gil out of bed. He stumbled around trying to get his jogging pants on without falling over. This had been an easier task a few years ago. To quote Roger Murtaugh, he was getting too old for this shit. There weren't many people who'd come knocking on his door at this hour of the night but if Gil were honest with himself, he was shocked it took this long.

He took a quick peek to be sure it wasn't something bad making its way to his door and then opened it, stepping aside so Malcolm could jitter his way inside. Damn, the kid looked ready to fly apart at the seams. What had he done to his eye? He'd escaped from Claremont unscathed somehow. Gil wanted to kick him in the ass for the risky thing Malcolm had done but in the light of everything he needed support and not another 'I told you so.' He was sure Jessica, in her frantic state of mind, supplied plenty of those.

"Sorry, shouldn't have..." Malcolm pressed his lips together tight, his hand shaking. "It's late."

"It's fine." He put a hand on Malcolm's shoulder, driving him inside as he locked the door behind him. "Go sit on the couch and we'll talk about it."

Malcolm obeyed. Gil fetched the whiskey. He poured two glasses neat. Malcolm took it with the hand that shook less but he didn't drink any of the Gentleman Jack.

"Tell me about it."

"I'm worried," Malcolm said at last.

Understatement of the year, Gil thought. Of course he'd been worried for twenty years where Malcolm was concerned. He'd known from the moment Malcolm had found the station wagon that something was going to go very wrong, even before they found all the damn bodies. No one kept a murder car for years for no reason. Someone had preserved the Surgeon's car out of some dark compulsion.

"I'm sure you are."

Malcolm shook his head and sipped the whiskey. "Not about that, not even about what happened in Mother's basement." He grimaced. "No, I mean, of course I'm worried about that but there's more."

"Your father being put out of reach?" Gil was of two minds about that. Malcolm never needed to speak to that man again. On the other hand, he also knew Malcolm was right: Martin Whitly could help bring the junkyard killer to justice faster than they could on their own since Malcolm was surely right about there being a connection.

"No, well yes but this goes beyond that."

"Why don't you just spit it out, kid?"

Malcolm took a deep breath, and then jumped as Phantom leapt up onto the couch making him jump a mile. Malcolm settled and stroked the enormous cat's fur. A pale silver and gray tabby, Phantom had appeared out of nowhere on one of Gil's stake outs and refused to leave the car's hood. He'd brought the kitten home to Jackie who insisted on keeping it. Phantom proved to be at least in part a Maine Coon, all loving and soft and had a face that looked like she disapproved of everything you did in the most comical way. She forced her way onto his lap as if sensing Malcolm needed comforting. Since he was sitting here in what Gil knew to be Malcolm's bed clothes, his cat was probably right.

"I didn't inherit my father's narcissistic personality disorder." Malcolm made a face as Phantom purred loudly, leaning into him. "Yes, I can be arrogant from time to time but I really _am_ good at my job."

"You are," Gil agreed, thinking of the jackasses in the FBI who called Malcolm a narcissist.

"I think Ainsley might have," he whispered.

Gil wrinkled up his nose, not expecting that. "Are you serious?"

Malcolm's hand shook, half visible in Phantom's lush fur. "I don't want to be but yes. Gil, she was going to do anything to get to interview our father and I could dismiss that as ambition and being good at her job. Part of me wonders am I just being patronizing and if a man did what she'd done, would I just say he's good at his job and leave it at that or would I be thinking he had narcissistic personality disorder too?"

"What did she do?"

"She used me." Malcolm slugged back more of the whiskey and Gil refilled it. "She used my trauma, my failed life to bring our father to his knees, to rip off the patina of civility and show the monster underneath and I'm not sure she gave a moment's thought as to how I would feel having my damage put on display for him. Her mind was only on how this interview would benefit her. I let her manipulate me for her ends and gave our father tools to use against me."

Gil gritted his teeth, hating where this was going. "Why did you let her do that to you?"

"She's my little sister and I wanted to help her. Because I wanted to see Martin Whitly taken down a peg or thirty." Malcolm averted his eyes. "I didn't know she'd do it _that_ way and it worked. Oh, not that he has done irreversible harm to me, that I'm so _broken_. He's not capable of caring about that. It was proving he was a bad father that hurt." He pressed his cheek to the top of Phantom's broad head. "But I'm not sure she cared about the pain it caused me either."

"Could you be misreading it?" For his sake, Gil sure as hell hoped so.

Malcolm nodded. "Maybe. It's harder to misread what happened next. She sent her cameraman out to get footage but of course we thought we were safe with the lock down. I'm an idiot. I should have guessed Tevin had have taken the therapist's key card."

Gil said nothing because Malcolm was right. He should have.

"After the stabbing, once our father was working to save Jin's life, Ainsley video recorded it all. That was her...well I'm not sure if I'd call Jin her boyfriend, Gil, but they're lovers. He's bleeding out and she could not be dissuaded from recording it."

"I can see why you'd be disturbed." Gil felt a shiver come over him as well. He finished off his own whiskey and poured more.

"It's not as if she wasn't distraught. She has empathy and I have to remember that. She's _not_ dad, not a psychopath but to put that much emphasis in doing her job better than anyone?" Malcolm shrugged. "I just don't know Gil. Maybe it's just ambition, maybe it's more."

"Are you worried she'll..." Gil let that trail off.

Malcolm shook his head. "Be violent? Cut people up like Dad? No, but I am afraid of what she might let happen, who she might hurt, to get the story she wants. Or that she'll follow this sense of 'I deserve this story, to be the best,' right into danger she can't get out of."

"Like facing down a serial killer in a slaughterhouse?" Gil asked pointedly.

Malcolm made a sharp quick laugh, full of bitterness. "Yes, just like that."

"I think you're too tired and too upset to make any sound profiling insights tonight, Malcolm. She's your sister and you know she loves you. Maybe you're right, she threw you under the bus to get what she wanted, that she has a narcissistic personality disorder or maybe she didn't realize how much it would hurt." Gil knew that was unlikely. Anyone who knew him knew how fragile Malcolm's soul could be. "You need some rest and some time to get the distance you need to see this clearly."

Malcolm nodded, and then whispered, "There's more."

Gil barely kept his 'good lord' to himself. "Tell me."

"It's not about Ainsley. It's about me." He gently pushed Phantom onto the couch pillow, looking at his trembling hands.

When Malcolm seemed to lock up, Gil put a hand on his arm. "Malcolm, it's all right."

Tears trickled over his cheeks. "No, it's not. Gil, I think...I think that trip, the one before he was arrested was the true impetus to me calling the cops, even before the girl in the box. I can't remember it clearly."

"I know." That Malcolm's memories were still locked up, that they had shut him down for months as a child was not news.

"I think he was training me to be his next apprentice. When I held the scalpel tonight, trying to help Jin, all I could see was the woods." A huge shudder shook Malcolm, nearly toppling him from the couch. "His hands around mine. I think...he was trying to get me to stab a victim. I remember running, being so very scared, Gil."

"Malcolm, you don't know..." Gil said, his voice tight but Malcolm cut him off.

"I'm getting surer by the hour."

"You are not responsible for things that man force you to do," Gil growled once he recovered his voice. It was too horrible to even consider Whitly had tried to teach his son to commit murder, that in fact maybe together they had. He entertained the urge to murder Martin Whitly, feed him to the other monsters inside Claremont. What had that man done to his child? What had Ainsley done by ripping off the armor Malcolm wore - though to be fair he doubted she knew about this?

"Am I not?" Malcolm said under his breath.

Gil tugged him into a tight embrace. Malcolm shivered against him, tears soaking Gil's shoulder. A stuttered sob echoed in Gil's ear. He rubbed Malcolm's back. He should have found his boy a job far from here, somewhere safe where he could work and no one would care who he was. He was partially responsible for this break down. "You are _not_ responsible for anything but stopping a monster, the first of many."

After a few minute, Malcolm sat back, his eyes and nose red. He scrubbed a hand over his face. "I'm sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry for, kid. You're not going back home tonight." Gil stood.

"I need to. I can't...I've imposed enough."

"My door is always open and you know that. Now, don't waste that whiskey and you're staying."

Gil left him on the couch to compose himself. He walked into the bedroom and pulled the night stand and the lamp, a glass-shaded Lalique knockoff that Jackie had loved, away from the bed and against the far wall. She would have been heartbroken if the lamp shattered and his own heart broke a little further at the thought. He had stayed in the too-large home because of her. At first he thought it would be too hard but he swore some days he could smell her perfume and it made him smile. He'd catch a little detail she had left behind, see the love in all the things she had done to make this a home and he just couldn't leave.

Malcolm staggered in, staring at him and the displaced night stand.

"There, if you fall out of bed the only thing you'll hit is your hard head on the floor." Gil tried to smile.

Malcolm offered up a broken laugh and clapped a hand against Gil's arm as he walked by. He collapsed on the bed, snarling himself up in the bedding. "Thank you," he said into the pillow.

"Try to sleep. I'm leaving the door cracked open in case Phantom wants in."

Malcolm nodded. Gil left him but within fifteen minutes, he was back holding Phantom. Through the half opened door, he watched Malcolm sleep. He seemed actually restful at the moment but Gil would stand watch anyhow. Enough had hurt Malcolm tonight. He wasn't about to let something more happen at least not until dawn. Tomorrow they would be forced onto the trail of the new serial killer and he knew none of them would escape completely unscathed but for the moment, just let Malcolm have a few moments of peace.


End file.
